Netla, I once read some books to make me feel cool when I was living in a place without airconditioning. "Ice Station Zebra" was one title I recall borrowing from the book exchange opposite my rooms.
I took back a library book I couldn't get into and reread a couple of my Dalziel and Pascoe books. I still feel unsettled after the recent move and don't want to start a new book.

I've started my 1957 book for the Century of Books read, The Comforters by Muriel Spark. I'm not very far into it yet since I'm just home this afternoon from our family Labor Day weekend get together. So far, it's not too interesting.

Yesterday I opened Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace, which I got from the library. I was only going to have a browse: it is, after all, a collection of journalistic writing and I usually pick and choose from such collections rather than read the whole thing from cover to cover. Well, I got sucked in by the writing and am now somewhere around the middle of the book, reading about life on the campaign trail with John McCain during his campaign to be nominated as the Republican presidential candidate for the 2000 elections. It's fascinating, and I'm not even interested in politics. I don't think I will open the cookbook again until I have finished this.

I am also reading Queen Lucia, but since I am doing it during my coffee and lunch breaks at work it is going slow, which gives me time to really savour the delicious humour.

I'm reading The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich. This is the first book I've read by this particular author, and so much has happened to the main character in the first 50 pages that I can't begin to imagine what might happen in the next 300.

Netla, I've put Consider the Lobster on my list.

I have to read Juliet by Anne Fortier for book club next.

Yesterday I started The Easter Parade by Richard Yates. It is impossible to ignore the popularity of the novels and stories of this overlooked American writer. What a shame that Yates is no longer living to see how many people are reading his books again.

Stayed up until the week hours to finish The Easter Parade. Wow! A compact little novel that packs quite a wallop. The book is about two New York sisters coming of age in New York City in the 1940s, and the ups and downs of their relationship. This novel is a lot like an episode of "Mad Men". Not a happy story, but a powerful, beautifully written novel.

I've finished The Comforters by Muriel Spark. It was her first novel, and I have had to Google to find out what it all means (and still can't explain the title). Cut and paste info on the Century of Books thread. This is not good for an English major.

Carolyn - you may not have felt like you "got" the Sparks title, but at least it made you think. (And thinkin' is almost always a good thing.) :-)

Finished up Comfort Woman by Nora Okje Keller. A good but slightly challenging novel focused on two PoVs of a mother/daughter pair living in Hawaii. (I've put a more detailed review in the CoB Reading Comments thread.)

And then finished up American Women by Doreen Rappaport, a non-fiction collection of letters and diaries of women who have come to or lived in the US since the early days. Written for YA, it was a good read and well edited. Rappaport is an award-winning YA NF writer. (I was wondering if Doreen Rappaport was related in some way to Helen Rappaport, but can't find it on-line... They're both good writers in different ways, and both look at historical women in the main.)

Then read a Moroccan read called "Horses of God" by Mahi Binebine which has to be the very BEST read of this year for me. It's a novel set in Morocco and based on the true story of the 2003 Casablanca suicide bombing incident. The narrator has the PoV of one of the dead suicide bombers looking down from wherever he is and looking back over his life. It's an astonishing and provocative look at terrorism - the how's and why's. You might not agree with what happens, but I bet it will make you think. What would you have done if you'd had the choices these folks had?

It's a fab read. I read it twice last weekend as the writing is so great. (It's only 168 pages or so.)

I've been reading a collection of stories by Ann Beattie--The New Yorker Stories (2010).

I don't remember who "wanted to shout the title out to everyone" re: Ivan Doig's 'The Whistling Season'. That got my attention and I'm loving it. On pg.112 of 345. Set in Montana in 1910

Discovered how funny Paddington the Bear books can be last weekend after finding one in a thrift shop. (Loved them and Paddington's obsession with marmalade sandwiches.) Also fit quite nicely into the CoB project (1968).

Finished up a quick read of the play "Pygmalion" and then researched it a bit. It's much darker than you'd think from it's adaptations like "My Fair Lady". There's also a post-modern ending which was unusual at that time.

Did another Agatha Christie title (can't seem to go wrong with those yet and I'm just randomly picking titles off the shelf at the library for those.) And now reading the non-fiction book of writer Anne Perry and her teenaged years when she was involved with the murder of one of her friend's mothers. All very strange right now, but perhaps it's get less strange later on.

This summer has not been a good time for reading for me, I can't seem to finish anything! If it weren't for our Century of Reading project, I probably wouldn't have finished a single book. (That reminds me that I think I need to post a book review on that thread! Mind like a sieve.) But every night I am reading a few pages in The Intellectual Devotional by David Kidder and Noah Oppenheim. This is in the form of a daily reader divided into weeks. Each day has an entry from a different field of knowledge: history, literature, visual arts, science, music, philosophy, and religion. The first entry is "The Alphabet" and 364 pages later, the last, "Zoroastrianism." I have actually purchased this book three times - the first two copies were borrowed and never returned.

I have been so busy that I haven't posted in a long time. I have had lots of family things going on (not all good) and have had to redo my gardens this year which is a work in progress. What a job! I have read quite a lot though, mostly "women's fiction" type books. My latest reads include Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain, Waiting For Wednesday by Nicci French and The Cornish House by Liz Fenwick. All have been enjoyable reads and not taxing to the mind. I would love to start my second "century" book but it awaits on my dresser top until it becomes a bit more fall-like and things slow down here. Today is over 90 degrees!

Went back to mysteries after the Spark book and have read Evil for Evil by James R. Benn, fourth in his WWII series, and The Malcontenta by Barry Maitland, second in his Kathy and Brock series. Both were quite good.

Pam, I too have had to do a lot of garden work with some help from the part time gardener in my retirement village. I had to relocate to another area and take as much of my old garden with me as could be managed!
The roses are doing well because being Winter Down Under there was a lot of rain which they liked apparently!
My present garden is composed of several small areas, one almost bare apart from three tall Cocos palms which I have to live with! The roses and odd bulbs are now there. The other front area is dominated by a huge palm tree so I resited my rock boulders which were an edging to make a rock garden with small plants in the gaps. The aloe veras, canna and an azalea have settled in well and the azalea is in bloom.
The back garden has no plan that I can make out. Just different kinds of bushes, Australian native ones, hibiscus, a New Zealand Christmas tree and a bottlebrush tree. I have practically ignored this area other than having a decaying tree removed.
I have been too tired to read much but have today picked up the latest Lisa Lutz' Spellman novel "The Last Word" which was on order at my library. Also a Cineraria plant. Every time I go to the shops recently I come back with a new plant!

Like some of you, I have been too busy to post much here, lately. My reading time is taken up with 7 books I must read for the college class I am taking: "history of Eastern Europe." My latest read for this course was "The Faithful River" by Stefan Zeromski. This is a lyrical novel, set in war-torn Poland in the middle of the 19th century. Much of it was written from a woman's POV, which I found interesting, as it came out in 1912. I am now reading "Portraits of a Marriage", set in Hungary, between the two World Wars.

After a rather long dearth of not reading much worth posting about, except for the Century of Books project, I picked up a book at the local used bookstore when I visited there with Rouan and Rosefolly. Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow by Maria Coffey turned out to be one of the most compelling books I have read in awhile. Coffey explores a side of mountaineering that isn't often discussed - in fact it is somewhat taboo - the effect on spouses, partners, parents, and children when people (both men and women) devote themselves to mountaineering, leave home often and for long periods of time and all too often don't return. Not very long - 228 pages - and written in a beautiful flowing style. It is nice to read a book where the workmanship shows. This book was obviously labored over and well-edited, things that seem hopelessly old-fashioned today.

I finished A Matter of Upbringing by Anthony Powell, the first of his 12-book series called A Dance to the Music of Time, in which he introduces four characters as schoolboys who will continue to appear and disappear throughout the series. This book was just episodes as they end their public school career and go on to university or to work. I found it actually quite boring but can see how it will fit into the rest of the books. Has anyone read the whole thing?

Now I've started The Villa of Mysteries by David Hewson, second in his series featuring Detective Nic Costa of the Rome police force.

I am currently reading The Stranger by Albert Camus in the original French. It is going surprisingly well considering my limited French vocabulary (which the book is swelling considerably), thanks to Camus's clipped, simple style. I'm probably missing some subtexts, but it helps that I have an English translation I can turn to when I'm not certain I understand something correctly. This is a part of the French lessons I have been taking for last couple of years.

I am currently enjoying THE DISTANT HOURS by Kate Morton and am looking forward to getting into
THE THINKING WOMAN'S GUIDE TO REAL MAGIC by Emily Croy Barker. ( it's a fictional novel, not an actual guide!).

It seems that I haven't been as able to settle into a book and make good progress.
The humdity did me in this summer and for some reason I have been obsessed with knitting lace patterned shawls.
Can you imagine that I've made over 15 since January !?
Each is a different pattern and all are really beautiful ( if I must say so myself ;0)

Add a rambuctious 4 year old grandson to the mix and somehow the summer flew by with less reading that I had planned .
But grandsons trump books , for sure .

I recently finished Regeneration, the first novel in Pat Barker's famous World War I trilogy. It was a wonderful book, albeit the subject itself was depressing and often quite horrible. I am now reading the second book in the series, The Eye in the Door, the focus of which is more the war's effect on British society. I hope to finish the whole trilogy this month. The third book, The Ghost Road, won the Booker Prize in 1995.

Carolyn, Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time series is on my list of books to read, though as a rule I don't care for series. I seem to recall, from reading a selection of her letters and journals, that Barbara Pym was a huge fan of Powell and his famous series. Twelve books does sound like a lot, though.

Yoyo, what kind of shawls have you made? You are sounding like Miss. Marple with her fleecy knitting!
I agree about having time for young grandchildren. They grow up so quickly. I am now onto a generation of Great grandchildren, three girls and a five year old boy who has just appeared in a television ad. I still run to watch "his" ad as soon as I hear the intro music although he is only on for a few seconds at the beginning, having a pillow fight!

It's been a long hot summer (as it usually is in Texas), and I've been searching for some "cold" books... Alongside that, I've been reading a very dense (almost) textbook on the Taliban (tough going), finished up a light read of a book by JoJo Moyers (which quite a few bloggers are going bonkers about but was just ok), and reading through the Paddington the Bear series.

Oh, and I was perusing an old thread from 2009 (I think), and Carolyn mentioned a title called "The Ginger Tree" by Oswald Wynn. An epistolary novel about a young Scottish woman who travels to China to marry one of the English military attaches stationed out there. Loving it so thanks for the tip!

You're welcome, and we once had a discussion of The Ginger Tree. I searched for it, but it didn't show up. It would have been a number of years ago.

After posting, I tried Googling and found our discussion of The Ginger Tree from April 2004 under The Reader's Paradise Archive, which would have been done by Martin, I'm sure.

Lemonhead, you might want to wait until you finish the book before taking a look at it, if you are interested.

I've finished Juliet and it was entertaining, lots of twists. It's based on the original Romeo & Juliet story that Shakespeare borrowed, and set in Siena. It's a good summer beach read and I'm a sucker for anything with an Italian theme. I liked the historical novel part much better than the modern story that the author mixed in.

Next up is a book my neighbor wrote that come out a few months ago, The Clover House. It's a Greek family drama.

I have had The Ginger Tree on my bookshelf for ages, so maybe I'll move it into the to be read soon stack.

Like others have said, I've had a reading slump lately with nothing appealing to me.

After visiting Maine last week with my sisters, I decided to re-read Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett. I read it with a new perspective as we had driven along the coast and I could see the ocean and shore as described (although more modern now...) as well as the fir trees. Our visit made the book come even more alive for me than it had been before.

I also felt like revisiting Enchanted April by Elizabeth Van Arnim which I finished last night. Maybe my reading slump has finally broken.

It is rainy and cold here tonight in Niagara. I took advantage of the atmosphere to finish The Ghost Road, the final novel in Pat Barker's World War I Regeneration trilogy. The series really is a masterpiece of modern historical fiction. As much as I admired the trilogy, however, I was frankly relieved to be finished with it. Has anyone else read it? I found it weighed quite heavily on me, as both my grandfathers, and numerous great-uncles, fought in "the Great War", including one great uncle was was killed at Vimy Ridge.

Timallan, I don't like to read books set in WW11. It was a difficult time for me, living in London during the Blitz and then relocating to a strange town afterwards where I found it hard to settle in the rooms we lived in, until we were able to have a house of our own.
I notice that some authors who wrote during that time placed their books in a pre-war setting. Margery Sharp simply ignored it in a series she wrote!

Tim, I read the Regeneration books quite a few years ago, when they first came out, but with gaps in between otherwise I think I would have found it 'too much'.
I must say I found the character, Billy Prior, a very nasty piece of work and wonder why Pat Barker has introduced someone so obviously not of the 'officer mould' into her plot.
I had no immediate relations out at 'The Front' during WWI. Grandfather, owing to a dicky heart stayed on Salisbury Plain with the Yeomanry. My American Grandfather, working in England, lived in fear that he would be called up when the US entered the war My DH's Grandfather joined up though already in his '30's and was seriously wounded at Arras. Many more relations involved in WWII.

Sent a couple of very boring books back to the library after only one or two chapters and kept the third for 'bedtime reading' ie an easy undemanding title The Time of Your Life: Getting on with Getting On by John Burningham. Extracts from famous writers and articles commissioned by 'personalities' about the joys or otherwise of Old Age. I began to wonder when I was going to feel the hand of the Grim Reaper tapping me on the shoulder.
A really enjoyable read was from my every-growing TBR pile.
Earth and Heaven by Sue Gee. The 'story' was of a young art student who comes to London after WWI to study at the Slade School of Art. It helped to have some slight knowledge of English artists of that time and Gee's descriptions of the Kent (SE of London) countryside and the changing seasons were beautifully descriptive.
Totally different/poles apart was Privileges by Jonathan Dee about a young go-getting couple who settle in NYC where the husband starts to make mega amounts of money (this was written during the banking boom). The wife does that American 'thing' of going on committees, doing good works and 'networking'. Twenty something years into the couple's uber successful life it is the son and daughter who are left rootless and with little purpose in their over-privileged lives.
Certainly worth reading.

I just finished Beast by Faye Kellerman. I mostly like her books for the glimpse into daily Orthodox Jewish home life.

Now waiting for me to finish here is the new Daniel Silva, The English Girl.

Still making slow progress with The Ginger Tree, and Carolyn, I took your advice to wait until I've finished the book before I look at that discussion. Don't want to spoil the story beforehand!

Speaking of spoiling the story, I accidentally read a summation of the narrative of Far from the Madding Crowd (Hardy). I know it's a classic, and perhaps I was the only person not to know the full story, but still, it was a bit annoying. I'm still really enjoying Hardy's writing though, and it's a good read.

And then finally admitted defeated with the Taliban book and moved on to something much more appealing to me: a collection of essays by E. B. White which I had picked up at the FoL book sale the other week. Loving White's essays - gently funny and just a great read so far. I have not read his work before (apart from The Elements of Style), so this was a nice surprise.

For my book club I read JK Rowling's new mystery The Cuckoo's Calling written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. I found it competent but not compelling. The detective and his assistant were interesting characters. The setting is the London fashion world, and it reminded me of the London of the novels of Dorothy L. Sayers, not quite sure why. Perhaps it is because each London thinks of itself as so very up to the moment, only to pass into datedness a few moments later. In a way, I felt as though I were reading a period piece. Possibly the series will grow on me. It's not a series yet but has all the earmarks that it will be one.

Just finished This Shared Dream by Kathleen Ann Goonan, and interesting but overly-PC vision of a future world created by altering time streams, and with them, human behavior. We certainly could stand to be improved as a species, but ultimately reading this book was discouraging. If this is the only way we can accomplish it, then we are clearly doomed.

On to more lighthearted fiction.

I have finished Daniel Silva's The English Girl and started A Question of Honor, a new Bess Crawford by Charles Todd. The Silva book was exciting, as usual, and threw me a couple of curves.

I just finished The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro for my bookgroup and really enjoyed it. It's fiction, though it revolves around an real art heist in 1990 and mixes in real historical figures. The story involves a disgraced painter, stolen works of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston, and the question of what makes a particular piece of art valuable when the question of an original vs. forgery is raised. I've been to the ISG museum many times, which made the story even more interesting to me. Good stuff.

Yoyobon, I've enjoyed everything Kate Morton has written, and I'm hoping there will be another book from her soon. I also have The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic on my Christmas list, please let us know what you think of it.

I'm about halfway through The Bookman's Tale by Charlie Lovett and loving it. It jumps in time from late 1500s to 1995 following the trail of a publication on which Shakespeare made notes for a play, as well as the mention of many, many other books, competitors, conservitors, frauds, a feud, and some love stories.

Finished "Far From the Madding Crowd" by Hardy the other day - enjoyed it and found that as the book progressed, it became harder and harder to put down and go and do âÂÂreal lifeâ things. I ended up doing a marathon read last night and was really immersed into Wessex and the lives of the villagers that Hardy had conjured up.

What I was most interested in this read was the difference in vocabulary and references that Hardy uses in his writing. ItâÂÂs been a while since I have needed to do a âÂÂNew Words to Meâ blog post, but reading Hardy helped me to add a lot of new words to that list, along with loads of references to biblical and Greek/Roman myths.

So -- why is it that more recent/modern writers tend to stick to the familiar vocabulary and images when other older ones didnâÂÂt? Yes, some modern writers do play a lot of with language (John Banville comes to mind), but generally speaking, there is not the range of vocabulary in more modern publications. (Perhaps itâÂÂs just the ones that IâÂÂve been reading?)

Is it because the older (read: Victorian) writers wore their learning lightly and made these literary references assuming that the reader would know them? Or were these older writers being elitist and showing off their education to their readers? Would the average reader at the time of Hardy know his references to IxionâÂÂs punishment and when âÂÂthe sailors invoked the lost Hylas on the Mysian shoreâÂÂ? Or were his readers just as puzzled as I was (and hitting the books to find out more)?

Another curious point is the link between the main female character -- Bathsheba Everdene -- and the more current heroic character of Katniss Everdeen in âÂÂThe Hunger GamesâÂÂ. I had wondered if there was a connection between the two, and in further research, it seems that HG author Suzanne Collins did name Katniss as a homage to the Bathsheba character -- both have strong independent characters that donâÂÂt always go down well in the society in which they live, both have similar romantic issues (Katniss/Peter (I think), and Bathsheba/Gabriel)⦠I wonder how many teen readers know that as the reference? Probably not too many, I would think, which is a shame as Hardy is a great read.

ItâÂÂs a shame that more people donâÂÂt read more Hardy -- I think they think of him as writer of tragedy and sadness, but if you read his Wessex books, they are pretty light-hearted and funny at times. IâÂÂd almost classify Hardy as a rural more down-to-earth Jane Austen in some ways, but people tend to get stuck on the disastrous story of Tess and get scared off. TheyâÂÂre missing out.

Apparently, David Nicholls has adapted a version of this for the BBC to play in autumn 2013. Maybe I can catch a bit of this when I visit in November...

Lemonhead, Far From the Madding Crowd is my favorite Hardy novel. There are parts of that book which I will never forget, such as the raindrops falling on a coffin! Yet Hardy is a writer I really struggle with.

After finishing Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy, I was feeling a bit drained. So I read two lighter titles. One was Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris. I don't usually find Sedaris to be a very memorable writer, and I am a bit puzzled at his huge cult following. For a humorist, I sometimes find his writing, particularly about his family, to be tinged with sadness. In this book, there are several references to his sister Tiffany, who is usually absent from his reminiscences. (Tiffany Sedaris died earlier this year, at the early age of 49.)

The other book was The Hound of Death, a volume of short stories by Agatha Christie, published in 1933. Diverting, but not terribly memorable. I don't think short stories were a form Christie ever mastered.

Liz, I am a great fan of Thomas Hardy, also. I loved his "Tess", as well as "Mayor of Casterbridge." He also wrote some fine poetry, in my opinion. I can really get into his rural landscapes. I still want to read "Jude the Obscure."

Lemonhead, I found your comments comparing Katniss Everdeen to Bathsheeba Everdene intriguing. I did not get the reference when reading The Hunger Games, no doubt because Hardy is a gap in my reading. The similar last name struck me the instant my eye hit 'Everdene', before it slid over to the rest of the sentence.

One of these days I must read Hardy. But not today.

Rosefolly

timallan, I find Sedaris hilarious, but only when he is reading his stories, as he does on NPR. There is something about his inflections and the way he reads his stories that just adds tremendous humor to them. I now will only get them in audio form, because otherwise his stories just aren't as funny.